Community as commodity?
Jill and I have been chatting with quite a few people about that tired old word – “community”.
Apparently it’s become something of a buzzword in many circles, not just church.? The second week we were back Jill was invited to attend a state psych conference in the city and she said that the concept “community” has overtaken the likes of Transactional Analysis and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy as the term that everyone is talking about.
Which brings us back to church (poor segway – Ed. Check link if you don’t know what a segway is).? The word “community” is bandied about a lot and as I said we’ve been hearing about it frequently since returning.? Christian groups we’ve spoken to have been saying that above all else they are looking for community. I don’t want to sound too pointy about it, but perhaps we need to be challenging ourselves over something that is becoming an obsession.? Is there a chance that community has become just another commodity; something we need to get for ourselves in order for things to be right for us?? Could it be that the answer to our lack of community is not to go looking for it, but to offer community to those who have none of it at all, rather than simply assume that we are the ones most in need of it?
For what it’s worth I look around and Christians, despite our protestations, have far more community than many other people, yet strangely we still don’t think it’s enough.? In fact many of us planning to do/doing the missional church thing are often the worst offenders.? One of the most striking discoveries for us during our time in Sheffield was that it was when we most took our eyes of our selves and focused them on the places and people we lived among, community naturally happened.? The depth and quality of the relationships we had among our household congregation was fast-tracked by our decision to offer community to others.
To sum this up, when we offer community open-handed, rather than trying to grasp at it, it comes our way anyway.
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